Epidemiologic study of 1217 suicide attempts in Semnan province

Suicide is one of the important social and mental health problems in many countries and considerable resources are devoted to health care. The purpose of this study was to investigate the demographic features of more than thousand cases of attempted suicide in Semnan province In this cross sectional study in 2008-2009, we collected data from cases referred to public hospitals and forensic medicine offices of Semnan province, using researcher made checklists, included demographic data and factors associated with suicide. Among 1217 cases of suicide attempts occurred in Semnan province, 768 cases (63.1%) were female and the rest were male. The mean age±SD of participants was 24.6±8.4. 599 cases (49.2%) were single. There was a significant relationship between gender and marital status (p<0.001) in a way that most of the male cases were single (60.8%) and most females were married (56.1%). The most common methods of suicide was drug toxicity (83.98%) and poison or opium overdose (7.1%). Totally, 1.6% of suicide attempts led to death which was significantly higher in men than in women (p<0.001). Since drug poisoning is the most common method of suicide, officials should ensure that drugs are offered only on prescriptions and physicians should avoid prescribing excessive drugs. Trying to identify high risk groups, providing education requirements, planning for employment and reducing the economic problems in young age group, is suggested